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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

FEDORA 14 "Laughlin" is now available

The latest Fedora release went live yesterday and is now available for download in a number of different architectures and desktop environments. Codenamed "Laughlin", release 14 brings a list of new features that are certainly not for everyone. Click on this
LINK to read the official announcement.

Fedora 14 continues a trend started in recent releases, where focus is apparently vanishing from standard desktop features while concentrating on concepts that IT professionals surely will appreciate. Some of Fedora 14 most relevant new features include:

Up to date desktop environments including GNOME, KDE, XFCE and others.

Repository updates for the most popular desktop applications including Amarok, Inkscape, GIMP, Clementine, etc.

Most of these features/updates will be of little relevancy for the average desktop user. I have tried Fedora 14 myself and haven't found much that would justify an update/installation. Considering Fedora usually keeps repositories very much up to date (Fedora 13 users enjoy most of those software updates already), there are not many elements making Laughlin that attractive. Unless you are a programmer in need for very specific pieces of software, the only driver I can think of would be enjoying the latest Kernel and desktop manager releases, which would be fair enough, but certainly speaks volumes about this Fedora release.

All in all, I don't find Fedora 14 features and updates worth putting together a review. I am sure the relevancy is there, but not so much for the average user. I have the feeling that Fedora will slowly become a specialist distro, losing part of its user base, which will inevitably migrate to other more user friendly alternatives.

I back traced to this article, coming from one written at the same blog about Fuduntu. Granted, this is now near 18 months old, it's an interesting read, after experiencing Fedora 15/16/17 releases, and this blog's speculation of users leaving Fedora.

I am among those looking for a suitable alternative to Fedora, having used it since Fedora Core 3. The 15th release incorporated Gnome 3, which actually caused me to downgrade my system *back* to Fedora 14. When the Fedora 17 release loomed, I attempted Fedora 16 with XFCE, but still didn't find it a satisfactory solution.

That Fuduntu forked at Fedora 14 has been highly relative to me, as that been prior to implementation of Gnome 3. Additionally, my primary computer being a netbook, Fuduntu seems a better fit than Fedora, being optimized for power management.